December 2007 Sánchez Commentaries and Sample Homilies

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (A)December 2, 2007Swords into Plowshares, Nukes into NutrientsPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Isa 2:1-5Rom 13:11-14Matt 24:37-44

Today, wherever Christians gather for worship, they will hear Paul’s call to conversion and Matthew’s exhortation to vigilance and Isaiah’s vision of the end of war. Isaiah’s words of peace and justice will be spoken on the battlefields of Baghdad, in the bunkers of Afghanistan and on the killing fields of Darfur. For the most part, the prophet’s vision remains just that — a vision without legs, a “dream” that seems too idealized to be enacted, mere words on paper.

We contentious human beings seem unable or unwilling to bring the prophet’s vision to life. So many times we listen but do not follow the demands this vision entails. Our split between hearing and doing is not unlike the ambience of the baptism scene in Frances Ford Coppola’s film “The Godfather.” The Mafia Don stands in church with his family, speaking the promises that will bless his newly baptized daughter as belonging to God and to the church. Coppola cuts back and forth between the church scene and scenes of murders taking place at that moment around the city — murders the Don has ordered. His murderous acts juxtaposed against his words effectively make those words a lie.

Many continue to believe that Isaiah’s vision foresaw the impossible. Yet, as the prophet has pointed out, the impossible must somehow be fused with the necessary. Something new and seemingly beyond all effort or genius or ecstatic longing or even imagining must come to be. This is absolutely crucial to the survival of humankind, to religious faith, to a civilized sense of the human — crucial to the fate of the earth.

Some have tried to beat swords into plowshares. For example, in September 1980, Daniel Berrigan, Molly Rush (mother, grandmother, founder and “soul” of the Thomas Merton center in Pittsburgh) and a group of friends entered the General Elective Reentry Division plant in King of Prussia, Pa., and, with small hammers, attempted to dismantle a Mach 12 missile. Berrigan described the missile as “a first-strike nuclear horror” with a payload of “technological doomsday” (Isaiah, Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 1996). Berrigan, Rush and the others were arrested, arraigned and punished. Many who wield both civil and religious authority, including Berrigan’s superiors, condemned the actions of those peacemakers as too radical and outside the pale of acceptable behavior. Authorities also criticized Cindy Sheehan when she took a similarly “unacceptable” approach to protesting the Iraq war and encamped outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Those who speak out for peace and justice and who are not afraid to incur the wrath of the reputable — like Berrigan, Rush and Sheehan — function like Isaiah and the prophets of old. Because of them, the vision continues to live. Despite our desires to the contrary, this vision is still able to call forth in us a radical response that can bring about the changes that will shepherd it to fruition.

Isaiah, along with Paul and Matthew, has set the tone for yet another Advent season, reminding us that waiting for Jesus’ return requires more than sentimental expectation. We cannot simply hope for justice; we are to take those actions that will establish justice. Hands that wield the weapons of war (swords in Isaiah’s day, missiles and “smart bombs” in our own) must be turned toward deeds of peace. Nuclear energy, now harvested for destruction, must be redirected and focused on feeding the world’s hungry. Votes that condone wars and aggression must be rethought. Mutual animosities are to be surrendered, sometimes without the satisfaction of proving oneself to be “in the right.” If peace and justice are ever to happen on the global level, their seeds must be planted and tended in individual hearts. What “sword” will you surrender in order to build peace? The choice is ours; the season is now; and Christ is the reason.

Isa 2:1-5Although he lived in the eighth century BCE, the life and times of Isaiah of Jerusalem

were not so different from our own. His was an age of war and rumors of wars, of duplicity and deceit and conniving in high places. Tiglath Pileser III had ascended to the throne in Assyria and was vigorously pursuing a course toward domination of the then-known world. Israel threw in its lot with Syria and invaded Judah in an attempt to co-opt the southern kingdom into a coalition against Assyria. In the end, despite Isaiah’s advice and protests to the contrary, Israel’s ill-conceived alliances with foreign powers proved futile and the northern kingdom fell to Assyria. Judah became a vassal state of Assyria, and the prophet’s visions of shame, death and destruction became a harsh reality. Nevertheless, Isaiah did not stop allowing the voice of God to speak through him and address the political ambitions and moral turpitude of his contemporaries.

In today’s first reading, Isaiah’s words constitute a vision of better times when the nations, along with the people of Judah, would recognize that God’s ways and God’s instructions (v. 3) were the true path to life and fulfillment. Isaiah’s vision portrays a converted people who had begun, once again, to look to God for answers, instead of following their own counsel and reaping the unfortunate consequences of doing so. By accepting God’s instruction or Torah, Isaiah’s contemporaries were, in effect, acknowledging God as the ultimate judge of all their political disputes. Although, as Walter Brueggemann has pointed out, the coming rule of God is portrayed poetically and theologically, the consequences of that rule would be profoundly political (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995). After its initial image of a parade of nations streaming toward Jerusalem for learning, Isaiah’s vision conjures up a “court of appeal” where problems will be divinely judged. In this court where God presides, war is not an option and cannot be embraced as a national policy. In order for the divine policy of peace to take effect, however, all parties must submit to God and relinquish the right to establish justice by their own hand.

Those who would reap the benefits of Isaiah’s vision were to do their part by dismantling their weapons of war and engaging them in a completely different type of activity — one that builds rather than destroys and that reverences a culture of life rather than one of death. This move to a “peacetime economy,” says Brueggemann (op. cit.), requires more than good intentions. The move also requires procedures to be put in place so that the resources and capacities of the economy are deployed in peaceful ways. It is not enough just to put aside the sword or the spear. These must be transformed from instruments of death to instruments that will preserve life.

Brueggemann’s insights and Isaiah’s vision prompt contemporary readers of the prophet’s words to determine how the sin of war can be not only ended but repented. How can

the energies that make such war possible be redirected toward lasting peace and authentic justice? It will happen only when animosity is replaced by mutual respect, where fear surrenders to hope and where hatred and apathy yield to purposeful caring in the human heart. No such growth is possible as long as we keep weapons at the ready “just in case.”

Rom 13:11-14While Isaiah envisioned a future in which the weapons of war would be transformed into

implements for building peace and justice, Paul called for believers to “put on the armor of light” and thereby to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of welcoming the one in whom all peace and justice find their origins. It wasn’t enough merely to hope for better times; Paul urged his readers to allow their hope to press them into active service. Because Paul had so devoted himself to establishing the reign of God, he could readily hold himself out to them and to us as a model. By his own admission, Paul wrote what has been called his “gospel” to the Roman churches in order to introduce himself and the preaching and teaching he wished to promulgate in Spain from a Roman home-base. He defended his Law-free gospel and paired it with an exposition of the union among all peoples (Jews as well as gentiles) that had been effected by Jesus’ death and resurrection (Rom 9-11). Beyond the stated motives, Paul’s letter appears also to have been influenced by what Daniel Harrington has described as “modified apocalyptic dualism” (Romans: The Good News According to Paul, New City Press, Hyde Park, N.Y.: 1998). A notion also reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls preserved by the community of Qumran, this manner of thinking is dualistic in that it contrasts good and evil, light and darkness. It is modified in that God’s sovereignty is a given, and the reign of the dark powers is temporary and subject to God’s plan. It is apocalyptic in that it is based on the conviction that God will bring all dualistic tensions to an end and vindicate the righteous in the sight of all.

In the midst of this modified apocalyptic dualism, however, believers in Jesus and in the Christ-event are empowered to live by faith and in accordance with the Spirit, thereby already sharing in the end-time blessings of justification, peace, reconciliation, redemption and salvation. On the strength of that conviction, Paul could speak of “salvation” being “nearer now than when we first believed” and of “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” so as to make the good news live in a world so much in need of its message.

Paul’s point in this passage, explains Philip F. Esler, is that followers of Christ should be now as they will one day become (Conflict and Identity in Romans, Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2003). The image of future salvation serves to tell them who they are and should be in the present, not solely to warn them that the future is near. Paul contrasts the day that is beckoning with the night they are currently experiencing and calls for readers to be people of the day and of the light rather than the darkness. Paul’s point is not that believers need to get themselves in order because there is so little time left but rather that the anticipated future provides a model for their identity and behavior right now.

For us, reading these words from the perspective of the 21st century, Paul’s message seems to say: Advent is a time to wait for the coming Christ. But there is no need to wait to face the challenges of Christian living. Live in peace now; work for justice now; be reconciled now, and by so doing, bear witness with your lives to the Christ who came, who comes and who is ever present among us.

Matt 24:37-44

Today’s Gospel encourages Advent believers to live with a purposeful readiness for welcoming the coming Christ so that they will have no regrets when the time comes. Some of us tend to wait until it is too late to remedy a situation and all we can do is say, “If only I had known, I would have done something different.” To that end, the sacred writers of Advent remind us that we do indeed know and believe that Jesus will come among us again. We do know that coming will be characterized by judgment. As our liturgical guide for this year, Matthew will tell us that preparing for judgment will consist in reaching out and alleviating the hungers, thirsts and other such needs of God’s least ones wherever these needs present themselves (25:31-46). Though we are duly informed and aware, we do not always allow this knowledge to penetrate the practical aspects of our lives, hence the annual call to alertness that is Advent.

First among our teachers, in this text, is the mythic figure of Noah, who took God’s word to heart and prepared for what was to most of the world an unpredictable calamity. Noah’s example of trusting obedience testifies against the human penchant for procrastination even in the face of imminent danger. Though we are warned of an oncoming storm or hurricane or tornado, many among us tend to think, “Well it could never happen here, or to me!” As a result, we may find ourselves unprepared and unable to cope with what can prove to be an overwhelming turn of events.

A pair of men and a pair of women offer the next lesson to Advent believers. At the coming of the Son of Man, warns the Matthean Jesus, one shall be taken and the other left. To the casual observer, both pairs of workers appear to be the same, but in an act of God’s judgment, the two are separated. One has been deemed ready for the reign, the other not. Those who await the returning Christ must go about their daily duties in a spirit of preparedness because we will have no forewarning. At the time of Jesus’ eventual coming, there will be no more time for “getting ready.”

A final lesson is communicated to believers in the person of the householder caught unaware by a thief in the night. Unaware, he was lulled into a false security by savoring the present to the detriment of a future-oriented existence.

While we, as a world, await the second return of Jesus, Advent also reminds us that we individuals will also know a “personal parousia”: our encounter with Jesus at the end of our life’s journey. The end of our journey is as certain as it is unknown. Therefore, watchfulness and hope are in order as we live this day, this hour, this moment, as worthily as if it were our last.

Dec 2, 2007 Sample HomilyFirst Sunday of AdventGod Keeps His Promisesby Fr. James Smith

It’s one thing to believe in some final divine intervention. But it’s another thing to believe that God is intervening here and now.

The first reading today talks about peace, yet Israel seemed to be forever at war. Isaiah spoke of all nations coming to them, yet Israel admitted to being the least of nations. Yet Israel hoped in itself and in its God. They were under no illusions — you do not get beaten up by every nation in sight and still think you are powerful. So they could have got stuck thinking that they were the least nation, but they went on to believe that they were also chosen as God’s favorite. Against all odds and enemies, Israel

expected God to be on their side. They had hope because God had promised them. And they believed in that promise.

That same God promised to be on our side, to stay with the church until the end of time. Paul likened the union of Christ and his church to the union of husband and wife. When we recall how intimate that union is — a melding of hearts and minds and souls and bodies — it is almost incredible to believe that Christ is just that close to his church.

And that covenant is forever. There is no divorce or annulment. No matter what the church does, no matter how badly she fails in her mission, we are guaranteed that God will remain faithful. The church is not just God’s instrument and institution, the church is the body of God’s Son. As long as God loves his Son, God will love his church. God also promised to love each one of us. But we have to believe and hope in it. Countless promising athletes and promising authors never made it because they did not hope they would. Hope works. Like Israel, we have to hope in ourselves and in our God.

Many of us stall in life because we are hopeless. We have no hope that new things will happen, and of course they don’t. Because the answers can be no better than the questions we pose.

For instance, in the macrocosm, it once seemed that the sun revolved around the earth. But when too many oddities occurred, we had to reverse the revolution. And in the microcosm, molecules had to give way to neutrons and yet-to-be-discovered entities.

Human life is even more complicated, yet we keep asking the same unanswerable questions. Unanswerable because life is not a puzzle that has a few missing pieces; life is a cubic challenge in which one changed piece changes all the others. Those questions are futile because victims try to understand while victors change life.

But in order to hope in ourselves we have to first hope in God. A practical hope in a present God. God does not have a general plan for our life. Our life has a precise meaning. God not only has a final goal; our life means something right now. God is not some outside fixer or controller; God is with us as soulmate. And God is never hopeless.

During Advent we play the waiting game. What are you waiting for? What do you hope for your world, your church, your family, yourself? Do you have enough hope to bring it into being? Choose something specific, because hope in everything is no hope at all. But leave the boundaries open, because your brightest wish is only a shadow of the glory that God has in store for you.

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (A)December 9, 2007The One We Await Determines Our Waiting Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

Isa 11:1-10Rom 15:4-9Matt 3:1-12

During Advent, believers are to cultivate a spirituality of watchfulness. Waiting is an inevitable part of the human experience. We wait in line at the bank, at the gas pump, at the grocery store and in the doctor’s office. At times, such waiting tests our patience. Waiting can bring out the best or the worst in a person, depending on the object of one’s waiting.

Recently, thousands of consumers voluntarily waited in long lines through the night and the wee hours of the morning in eager anticipation of the latest electronic gadget, the iPhone. Various toys have prompted similar bouts of waiting, as have books, like those in the popular Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. People have submitted willingly to extended periods of waiting for tickets to a concert or play or even a movie.

At other times, waiting can be an experience fraught with anxiety. If one is expecting the results of a test, waiting can be burdensome and each moment seems longer than the last. Waiting to entertain a cantankerous boss or an unreasonable client for a “duty dinner” can be tinged with dread. It can also be a struggle to wait for the departure of contentious relatives making a visit of undetermined length.

British journalist and religious broadcaster John Harriott has pointed out that there is a richer kind of waiting, a waiting for the fulfillment of a process already begun (Empire of the Heart, Templegate Pub. Co., Springfield, Ill.: 1990). When seeds are planted in a garden, those who await the flowers are willing to allow them time to germinate and grow. Philosophers, artists, musicians and writers do not resent the time they spend mulling over ideas, for they are aware that a period of mulling is integral to the creative process. The parents who are expecting a child know that every moment of waiting contributes to the wondrous process of bringing forth a new life into the world. Waiting, planning, loving and hoping are all part of the preparation for welcoming such a gift.

Likewise, Advent waiting is characterized by joy and not impatience and by hope rather than anxiety, for we know the One for whom we wait. In the first reading, Isaiah, prophet of Jerusalem, offers an extensive description of the long-awaited One. Endowed with the very Spirit of God, that One will be characterized by wisdom, strength and understanding. He is faithful and true and he will judge with justice. In his presence, animosities will cease and a reign of peace that seems almost unimaginable will be enjoyed by those who welcome him into their lives.

The coming One, as Paul will affirm in his letter to the Romans (second reading), will be the fulfiller of promises, and in him God’s truthfulness will be proven. In him, insisted the Matthean evangelist (Gospel), the Holy Spirit has come among us, baptizing us into a belonging that is to become obvious in all we are and do.

Because we know the One whom we await and we are well aware of what his coming will bring to fulfillment, our waiting is actually a process of anticipating his coming by becoming like him. If he is God’s peace, we are to prepare his way by being makers and tenders of peace. This will necessitate more than prayers for peace or a well-intentioned plan for peace; making peace in anticipation of the One who is peace will require deliberate measures. Jesus made peace by his blood on the cross (Eph 2:14, 17). This level of self-sacrifice has set the bar. How much of ourselves are we willing to give in order that peace may exist and the process of peace move forward?

So also, if Jesus is God’s wisdom and understanding, then all our dealings with one another are, here and now, to be guided by a divinely dictated norm rather than by the norms of Wall Street or Madison Avenue or Capitol Hill. If he who is to come is God’s justice, then justice must inform our minds and hearts and be translated into deeds that defend the rights of others. In a word, the One for whom we wait dictates the character of our waiting.

Isa 11:1-10Last week, Isaiah’s vision held forth the promise of a world without war. This week’s

glimpse into the prophet’s store of visions beguiles believers with promises of peace, justice and

universal harmony rooted in the presence of God and enjoyed by all peoples and creatures of the earth. Both visions communicate the hope of God for humankind. Yet both visions are in danger of being relegated to a painted existence on Hallmark cards unless the moral instructions that accompany the visions are enacted as norms for living. These instructions include a renewed authenticity regarding liturgical worship and an increased effort at translating professed faith into lived faith that serves the needs of the poor.

Because these moral instructions had been neglected by his contemporaries, Isaiah interpreted the deteriorating political situation of Israel and Judah as a consequence of that neglect. Despite desperate attempts to stave off conquest, the northern kingdom had been swallowed up by Assyria and the southern kingdom had become a vassal state, with Ahaz functioning as its puppet king. In the midst of this upheaval and because of the increased threat to their treasured traditions, Isaiah had warned his contemporaries, “Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm” (7:9). As Carroll Stuhlmueller has explained, this declaration insists that unless believers allow themselves to be rooted in God in total confidence and obedience, they will sway with the wind and eventually collapse (“Isaiah, Reading Guide,” The Catholic Study Bible, Oxford University Press, New York: 1990). Nevertheless, as Isaiah’s visions affirmed, collapse became the occasion for God to bring new life and new hope.

Even though what was left of the once united kingdom of Israel and Judah after the Assyrian aggression seemed like a lifeless “stump” (v. 1), Isaiah’s vision promised that God could effect a new beginning for those who maintained their faith and entrusted themselves to God’s ways. Some, who assign a later date to this vision, suggest that it enunciates a promise of survival after the exile in Babylon. In either event, it is clear that the prophet was sure that the future well-being of his contemporaries lay in God’s hands and should not be entrusted to any human project or political alliance.

A taste of that promised well-being was experienced by Isaiah and his fellow Judahites when Immanuel (i.e. Hezekiah, in whom the prophet placed hope for a better future) took the throne and the surviving remnant of God’s people began to flourish once again.

Christians have long looked to this Isaiah prophecy with the understanding that the vision was only partially realized through the reign of Hezekiah and would be fully experienced only through the coming of a future messiah-king-Immanuel. Scholars, calling on that quality of scripture called sensus plenior (or “the fuller sense”), have understood that this vision’s “deeper meaning, intended by God but not clearly intended by the human author,” has been revealed fully only “in the light of further revelation and/or of the development in the understanding of revelation” (Raymond E. Brown, “Humanities,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1990). Hence, whereas Isaiah looked to Hezekiah as the shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse, Christians look to Jesus Christ through whom all such visions are in the process of being fulfilled. We, for our part, are to move that process forward by living lives that communicate and celebrate rather than contradict the vision.

Rom 15:4-9Was Paul thinking of Isaiah’s vision of a kingdom of peace and justice when he advised

his Roman readers to find encouragement in what “was written previously for our instruction”? In verse 4 of this pericope, Paul refers to that instruction as the “scriptures,” and in the verses that immediately precede and follow this text, Paul quotes not only from Isaiah (Rom 15:12 quotes Isa 11:10; Rom 15:9 quotes Isa 11:30) but also from Deuteronomy (Rom 15:10 quotes Deut 32:43) and the Psalter (Rom 15:10 quotes Ps 117:1; Rom 15:3 quotes Ps 69:10).

In offering this advice, Paul was, as Beverly Gaventa has pointed out, making a theological claim about the way in which the voice of scripture always speaks a word of hope (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995). While this word and the hope it spoke to one generation of believers had pertinence to their experience in their own time and place, that same word can speak its hope to any number of generations of believers in any place and at any time because the Word of God lives.

While God’s living word invites those who hear it to a communion that transcends all boundaries, all struggle and pain, it devolves upon believers to hear and interpret that Word. This interpretation, insists David N. Power, involves respect for the Word in its content and composition and in its relation to the social and cultural realities of the community that hears and receives it (“The Word of the Lord,” Liturgy’s Use of Scripture, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 2001). The interpretation of the Word begins at liturgy; the liturgy offers the horizon, gives assurance to faith and opens up issues regarding the important decisions that the Word prompts the believer to make.

For Paul and his Roman readers, that decision involved the conflict that had arisen between the “strong” and the “weak” members of the community whose varying attitudes toward the Mosaic Law threatened their union with one another, In an argument that began at chapter 14:1 and was concluded in today’s second reading, Paul reminded the Roman Christians that their harmony with one another was rooted in Jesus Christ, who welcomed each of them without distinction. Thereby Christ set the example as to how each member of the community, regardless of their differences, ought to welcome one another (vv. 5, 7).

This was the Word that offered encouragement and hope to first-century believers. As this same living Word is spoken into our community today, how does it offer hope to us? Doesn’t this same Word call out to the wealthier members of the community to ease the burdens of the poor? Doesn’t this same Word remind all of us who are immigrants on this earth to reach out with welcome to the immigrants among us who are being denied the care and hospitality that are their due as God’s creatures and our brothers and sisters? This Word is spoken most clearly to us at liturgy, where it is also to be interpreted. As we are sent forth from each liturgical encounter, this is the Word we are to take with us.

Matt 3:1-12In a very real sense, the gathering at the Jordan presided over by John and described in

this pericope by the Matthean evangelist was liturgical in character. Many from the surrounding area had come to hear the Word of God as spoken by John, to listen to its interpretation and application to their lives. Some allowed the living power of God’s Word to transform them. Repentant and open to the truth, some were baptized in preparation for hearing an even truer, fuller and more challenging Word, soon be among them in the person of Jesus Christ. Within our own liturgical assembly, we hear anew the challenge of this Word of God about the necessity of conversion. It is our decision whether or not to welcome the transformative Word, but upon that choice will hang our future effectiveness as witnesses to the coming reign of God.

John the Baptizer, herald of Jesus, was witness to that reign par excellence. Regarded as a significant figure who stood out among his contemporaries, John was praised by the Jewish historian, Josephus, for his piety and religious leadership. Josephus also observed that Herod did away with John for fear of the political upheaval that might result from his ministry (Antiquities 18.5.2). Like the prophets whose mantle and mission he had assumed for the sake of the reign of

God, John held out both promises and warnings and reminded his hearers that repentance would lead to membership in the coming kingdom, whereas a failure to repent would reap judgment.

The quality of the repentance required for kingdom participation is clearly affirmed through the exchange between John and the Pharisees and Sadducees who approached him for baptism. Although they had made their way out to see John, he called them a “brood of vipers,” expressing that he did not think their intentions were pure. It wasn’t enough simply to show up. To prove themselves authentically repentant, John called them to produce “good fruit” as evidence. Nor would it be enough to have the right religious pedigree: “We have Abraham as our Father” (v. 9). Rather, authentic repentance would require a thoroughgoing change of heart, mind and lifestyle.

Obviously, the Word of God as spoken by John sent a powerful message to his contemporaries. How does that living Word speak to us who listen to John today? Perhaps the Word is telling believers that it is not enough to come to church, as John’s early listeners flocked to the Jordan. Nor is it enough to be called Christians. Repentance is more than a name and more than simply being present at liturgy. The repentance that will best welcome the One who comes to save consists in a radical surrender to Jesus Christ in all our living, in all our believing, in all our hoping, in all our loving, in all our serving.

Dec 9, 2007 Sample HomilySecond Sunday of AdventAdvent Is Time to ChangeBy Fr. James Smith

The Baptist calls for a radical change. That’s nothing new for us — rapid change has become a part of our lives. New houses spring up like mushrooms, new computers are obsolete before you get them home. Everything is temporary or expendable: razors, contact lenses, friends and spouses.

We’re supposed to feel good, liberated, even happy about all this newness. And some of the time we do. But scratch just beneath the latest coat of anything and you find a little fear. Of what? Of a whole lot of things. We’re afraid of falling behind in the rat race, of going under in a swirling world, of getting lost in a religious black hole. We’re afraid of losing touch with our children, with our past, with ourselves, even with our God.

We have discovered that change is wonderful but takes a heavy toll. It offers new possibilities, but not always the ones we expected. It does open new doors — but it slams others shut. Change is exciting, but it is also heartless, cruel and selfish. It follows its own rules. But most of all, rapid change leaves us stranded in unfamiliar territory. Change digs a huge chasm between past and future, between what we have always known and what we haven’t yet learned. The largest rift is between the wonderful new outer world we’re supposed to be enjoying and the old inner world that doesn’t know what to make of all this strangeness.

Thus, we end up as divided people. We have cut our moorings with the past but have no idea of our destination. On the crest of the wave of progress we feel exhilarated, but in the trough of confusion we are afraid of going under. We vaunt our success to others, but admit to ourselves that we often despair of ever being at peace again.

It is in just this awkward, embarrassing situation that the strange figure of John the Baptist may have something to offer. He is certainly talking about great and rapid change: The axe is about to chop down the whole tree. The old reality will not work any more.

The Baptist is talking about social reconstruction, even revolution. But we understand social upheaval better than he. We realize that our lives will never again be quiet. We have learned that change brings its own inner demand for further change. We have given in to the fact that from now on, outside reality will be in constant chaos. But we also have learned that much of reality has become fluff and nonsense — that the chaff will blow away. But what will be left? An empty shell where our souls once lived? A boarded-up store that used to contain our inner treasure? A lifeless husk with no kernel? Is there a way to make change constructive instead of destructive?

The Baptist is a good example of drastic change gone wrong. John did not want to trim and save the tree; he insisted on cutting it down. Jesus, on the other hand, would not even bruise a tender reed. He loved his Jewish ancestry; he fulfilled his people’s past instead of rejecting it.

You and I have a better chance at real change if we follow Jesus rather than John. Whether we get married, join a monastery, get converted or change political parties, we always remain the same people. We bring our past with us — it is us. The past can never be finished. It can only be refinished, refashioned, reinterpreted.

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT (A)December 16, 2007The Many Faces of SalvationPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Isa 35:1-6James 5:7-10Matt 11:2-11

What is heaven like? At one time or another, most of us have given that question some consideration. Our hopes about heaven vary depending upon our age, circumstances and life experiences. For some, heaven promises an end to pain, struggle and every human limitation. For others, heaven holds out the hope of reuniting with loved ones lost for a time but now forever near. If we were to reword this question in a manner more in keeping with the Advent season, we might ask, “What will it be like to meet the returning Christ?” or “How will I experience the salvation he brings?”

For the contemporaries of Isaiah and James and Matthew, the question was similar but distinctly messianic in character. Most had formed an opinion about how that question should be answered. For a people whose history had been shaped by foreign oppression from Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and then Rome, messianic hopes were markedly political, and the salvation to be wrought by the coming of God’s Anointed was more often than not characterized by a battle for freedom, for rights, for land, for renewed political power and economic stability.

There were some among the people, however, whose keen insight into the mystery of salvation saw beyond the battlefield and whose messianic hopes were open to the surprises God had in store for the faithful. This messianism, as Jon Sobrino has pointed out, was rooted in the certainty that the God of the alliance is the God of those deprived of hope; this God takes up the cause of those stripped of all power (Christ the Liberator, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 2001). In affirmation of Sobrino’s insight, Christian Duquoc explained that this alternative messianism

insisted that God ceases to be a support for destructive powers and becomes the God of the poor. God is still clad in the trappings of a king, of a political leader, though now not to impose a new imperialism but to establish justice, healing, liberation and peace (“El mesianismo reinterpretado,” in Mesianismo de Jesús y discreción de Dios, Cristiandad, D.L., Madrid: 1985).

This quality of messianism is reflected in the Isaian vision detailed in today’s first reading and is repeated in today’s Matthean Gospel. This was a messianism characterized by vindication and salvation and realized in the opening of blind eyes, the clearing of deaf ears, the lame leaping like stags and the singing of the mute. This messianism meant food for the hungry, justice for the oppressed, protection for strangers, freedom for captives and the raising up of all who are bowed down (Responsorial Psalm 146). As Sobrino (op. cit.) has further noted, Jesus did not in any way reject this messianic movement; on the contrary, he radicalized it by affirming in all he said and did that any power that is indifferent to despair and oppression, even a religious one, is a perverse power.

This alternate understanding of messianism, or what Sobrino has called the “re-messianization of the Messiah,” necessitates a re-messianization of the church and its theology. To put it another way, the salvation that Jesus came to realize in terms of the poor, the weak, the hungry, the oppressed, the displaced and the marginalized has now become the mission of the church. For the church to spend its energies and resources on endeavors that do not effect this quality of salvation is to work at cross-purposes to the One whom we await.

However, if we are answering the needs of the homeless and hungry; if victims of injustice find in us a voice that speaks for them — then we are beginning to make authentic preparations to welcome Jesus, Savior of the world. Through the centuries, the church has recognized and reaffirmed this as its responsibility. In 1992, a synod of bishops issued a statement titled “Justice in the World,” which asserted that “action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel … and of the church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.” Although the church is not alone in its responsibility for justice, “it nonetheless has proper and specific responsibility which is identified with its mission of giving witness before the world of the need for the love and justice contained in the Gospel message, a witness to be carried out in the church institutions themselves and in the lives of Christians.”

Such was the witness Jesus gave and the face that he as Savior reflected to all whom he met. His was the face of a healer, a giver, a friend, a brother, a servant, a lover. Is this still the face with which the church looks upon the human community, whose salvation — both temporal and spiritual, political and economic — continues to be its responsibility? Is this the face with which I prepare to welcome Jesus?

Isa 35:1-6The first reading is the third in a series of four visions with which Isaiah inspires our

Advent waiting. Each of these visions is replete with possibilities. Each articulates what can happen when the God who comes is welcomed into an individual life, into a community of shared lives. Isaiah describes those possibilities in terms of a transformation of creation and, with it, humankind.

A consensus of scholars agrees that this text is more closely related to Deutero-Isaiah and to chapters 40-55 than to the writings of Isaiah of Jerusalem (Chapters 1-39). The transformation

described here probably refers to the return home of the Israelites exiled in Babylon and to the new beginning with which God would bless their repentance.

Notice that the redeemed move through the desert as if on a pilgrimage. As they journey, the terrain is also transformed, as if it reflects in creation what God has done for the people of Israel. Long before Greenpeace (founded 1971) and “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), Isaiah and his prophetic colleagues understood the close connection between humankind and creation and the necessity of preserving the harmony between the two. Isaiah also understood that this harmony depends on a right relationship with God that spills over and is revealed in the beauties of the created universe. Transformed humanity finds a sure echo in the transformation of nature.Walter Brueggemann would have Isaiah’s readers recognize the chiastic structure with which the prophet enunciated this echo: (a) the transformation of creation, vv. 1-2; (b) the transformation of disabled humanity, v. 3; (c) the assertion of God’s coming intervention and rescue, v. 4; (b1) the transformation of disabled humanity, vv. 5-6a ; (a1) the transformation of creation, vv. 6b-7 (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995). Brueggemann also suggests that it is best to read this text from its center, verse 4, wherein an oracle of salvation is proclaimed. All else hangs on this word, and without God’s powerful word and effective presence, creation and humankind are lost. But, God’s intention is to save, and that intention opens up a world of endless possibilities for reconciliation, redemption and renewal.

Ah, but there’s the rub. Do we actually believe in God’s saving intent? Do we truly believe that these visions lie within the realm of possibility? Do we dare to trust that God is truly coming? If we do not truly believe, how can it ever be so?

James 5:7-10At first reading, James’ example of the farmer who must wait trustingly for all his efforts

to come to fruition may seem out of place. Yet, as it stands between today’s first reading from Isaiah and today’s Matthean Gospel, the message of James is very much in keeping with the overall theme of today’s liturgy. James reminds us that the process of transformation is exactly that — a process through which healing, growth and wholeness come about, but only gradually. For that reason, patience, a virtue to which James refers three times in these four verses, is the order of the day.

Clearly there is a marked difference between James’ advice and earlier admonitions that were characterized by urgency and imminence. Unlike the imagery of the “thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:2) or the “stars … falling from heaven” (Mark 13:35), which conjured up the sudden and the unexpected, this imagery invokes the farmer who has no choice but to await the seasons and the rains. For the author of James, insists Beverly Gaventa, the parousia or second coming of Jesus has less to do with God’s invasion of the world than it does with the absolute reliability of God to keep a promise (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995). Like the farmer who relies on the God, who perennially keeps promises and sends the rains (Deut 11:14; Jer 5:24; Zech 10:1), so must the faithful who wait rely on God. The patience of the faithful is a virtue that does not originate in them, but in the certainty of God’s promises.

But what has James to say to 21st-century believers? Does he advocate being passive and resigned, sitting back and awaiting the workings of God? Should we advise the poor, the sick, the hungry, the homeless and all other victims of injustice to grin and bear it until God acts on their behalf? James’ reference to the coming of the Lord as a time of judgment should preclude such inaction and prompt believers to an awareness of their accountability for this world’s needs.

Another clue to our fuller appreciation of James’ advice lies in his choice of the word hupomenē, which, as William Barclay has pointed out, is not a passive patience (“The Letters of James and Peter,” The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, U.K.: 1976). Rather, hupomenē is best described as a gallant spirit that can break the tides of doubt and sorrow, struggle and emerge with faith still stronger on the other side. God does not require a faith that never complains or questions; rather, God calls forth from those who wait in patience a still greater faith that believes even when it is tortured by doubt and overwhelmed by questions. This faith is willing to work hard to help to accomplish the promises of God, but is also patient enough to realize that it is God, in the end, who will crown every human accomplishment with fulfillment.

Matt 11:2-11One reason the Matthean evangelist’s community undertook the responsibility of

formulating a Gospel was to help believers in Jesus during the late first Christian century to identify themselves as church, rooted in yet distinct from Judaism.

Some in the Matthean community were of the mind that the institution of Judaism, with its emphasis on laws and hierarchy and centuries-old traditions, was an appealing structure within which to live out their commitment to Jesus. However, just as Jesus had exercised his messianic ministry “outside the box” of popular political and militaristic expectations and over and against the legalism of the authorities of his day, so as was the church to find its identity elsewhere. That identity would be found and expressed in service, healing, liberation and in the preaching of the good news to the poor.

The blind, the lame, lepers and the deaf had been formerly regarded as outcasts from God and society because their physical challenges were attributed to sin. This would no longer be so in the reign that Jesus had come to preach and establish. Rather, it would be in the service of these poor ones that Jesus would express the full character of his messianism. The nature and scope of God’s salvation would be revealed in the healing and redemption of God’s least ones. The church would find its true identity in its defense of the rights and dignity of the poor and needy of this world.

As the question of John the Baptizer (v. 3) is repeated in our hearing today, we are challenged to make it our own. We too are obliged to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” We are obliged to hear the answer with which Jesus deflected the misplaced expectations of his contemporaries. We are to discover in Jesus’ answer the mind of God, for whom salvation means healing, not conquest, and service rather than power. If we accept Jesus’ answer — as did John and Peter, Paul and so many others — then we too are called to do as Jesus did and hold out against those who would force messianism into a mold and salvation into a neat legalistic formula.

Jesus himself called “blessed” those who could embrace his purpose and ministry without taking offense at him (v. 6). That blessing sanctified the work of his first disciples as well as the second generation of believers who comprised the Matthean community of the 80s. That blessing reaches out with grace and power to embrace believers who today attempt to live and love and serve as Jesus did.

In order to be true to Jesus and the Gospel, believers of the 21st Christian century are to maintain what Ronald Rolheiser has called the four non-negotiable essentials of Christian spirituality: (1) an essential honesty and integrity; (2) a concern for the poor; (3) reverence for and support of community; (4) a mellowness of spirit that can continue to grow without

becoming angry or bitter or apathetic (“Infinite Spirits in a Finite World,” National Catholic Reporter, Aug. 17, 2007). These non-negotiables inspired Jesus as well as the Matthean church, and they are to fire us toward a more authentic following of Jesus.

Dec 16, 2007 Sample HomilyThird Sunday of AdventGetting Beyond Our Illusionsby Fr. James Smith

Deep in the dungeon, disillusioned by the tragic turn of his life, the Baptist ponders God’s strange providence. John is convinced that he received his message from God and he’s sure that he got it right: Prepare the way of the Messiah. But when the Messiah came, he did not act the way John had presumed and predicted. Was the message or the messenger wrong? John needs to know. He deserves to know. In Nikos Kazantzakis’ intriguing book The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus and John are in the hollow of a rock arguing all night long about what to do with the world. The Baptist’s face is hard and decisive; from time to time his arms go up and down as though he were chopping wood. Maybe he is showing Jesus how to lay the axe to the root of the tree of evil.

By contrast, the face of Jesus is calm and hesitant; his eyes are full of compassion. He asks John: “Isn’t love enough?” John answers angrily: “No! The tree is rotten. God called me and gave me the axe, which I placed at the roots of the tree. I did my duty; now you do yours. Take the axe and strike!”

Jesus sighs: “If I were fire I would burn; if I were a woodcutter I would strike. But I am a heart — so I love.”

We understand the frustration of the Baptist. We have often done our duty only to see it undone by our successor. We have often seen our carefully planned projects botched by an incompetent friend. Why can’t other people — and God — live up to our expectations? Along with the Baptist, we anxiously ask: “Are we stuck with you or shall we wait for someone more like what we wanted?”

This story of John’s disillusionment is ours, also. It is the story of everyone who looks for a Lord who does not come or who comes in a way we didn’t expect. But disillusionment is not a bad thing. It is, literally, the loss of illusion about our God, about the world, about our self. And although often painful, it is never a bad thing to lose the lies that we have mistaken for the truth.

Disillusioned, we discover that God does not conform to our expectations. We glimpse our own relative place in the grand cosmic scene. We review our divine job description and are shocked that God has a different self-description.

Did God fail to come when I rubbed the lantern? Then maybe God is not a genie. Did God fail to punish my enemies? Then maybe God is not a cop. Does God not make everything run smoothly? Then maybe God is not a mechanic.

Over and over again, my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and God’s doing. Every time God refuses to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed; another curtain is drawn so I can see the puppet I have propped up in God’s place. Disillusioned, I realize my human error and am graced with divine truth.

Blessed are those who do not let the minimal Messiah they want overshadow the majestic Messiah that the world needs. Blessed are they who name the things that God is doing instead of the things God is not doing.

Blessed are they who are not afraid to change their plans, to adjust their hopes, to bend their will to God’s will. Blessed are they who trade their private illusions for God’s saving truth.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT (A)December 23, 2007An Antidote to FearPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Isa 7:10-14Rom 1:1-7Matt 1:18-24

“Don’t be afraid!” said the angel to Joseph in a dream. This exhortation against fear, preserved in today’s Gospel, enabled Joseph to shake off what must have been nightmarish worries about Mary, about the coming child, about the need to do the right thing by his pregnant wife, as well as follow the law and keep the curious and the judgmental at bay.

According to the NRSV Exhaustive Concordance, the exhortations “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” occur at least 80 times in scripture (Bruce M. Metzger, ed., Thomas Nelson Pub., Nashville, Tenn.: 1991). Each time, the one who hears these words is assured that God is greater than any fear and that there is indeed an antidote to fear. As Walter Burghardt has pointed out (Speak the Word with Boldness, Paulist Press, New York: 1994), God told Abraham to “fear not” (Gen 15:1) before making a covenant with him. Gabriel said the same to Daniel (10:12) when he was terrified by a vision. An angel messenger said it to Zechariah (Luke 1:13), father of John the Baptizer, while Gabriel similarly encouraged Mary (Luke 1:12, 30). Angels said it to shepherds startled by Christmas glory (Luke 2:10) and Jesus said it to the disciples when they thought the Lord to be a ghost walking on the water (Mark 8:50). A voice at Jesus’ transfiguration told Peter, James and John not to fear the moment (Matt 17:7), and the same assurance was offered to Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ tomb (Matt 28:5).

But in all of these circumstances, the people had good and valid reasons to be afraid. Indeed, as the words “Do not be afraid” and “Fear not” are addressed to us through the proclamation of the living Word, do they not remind us of all that makes us tremble and cower in trepidation? How does “Fear not” speak to the loss of a job? A diagnosis of cancer? A child’s addiction to drugs or alcohol? How does an injunction against fear enable us to cope with the death of a loved one? The effects of hatred and violence? The horrific dangers posed by pedophiles and other criminals who prey on the defenseless? The seemingly endless spate of storms, floods, mudslides and fires and the overwhelming destruction these leave behind?How does “Do not be afraid” even begin to speak to the tragedies of war, genocide, famine and disease that strike with merciless frequency all over the world?

The reason for this admonition is clear and simple: Believers should not live in fear or allow it to stifle their spirits and drown their hopes because through it all, within it all, despite it all — God is with us.

This assurance, proclaimed by Isaiah as a sign to Ahaz and his eighth-century B.C.E. contemporaries, was fulfilled, as the Matthean evangelist has affirmed, in the birth of Jesus Christ. Indeed, as Burghardt has noted, Christmas, God-in-our-flesh, assures us that fear is not

the critical or identifying characteristic of the Christian. At the heart of Christianity is God-with-us. At the very root of who we are as believers is the assurance that God is love and that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

In the ultimate act of fearlessness, God trusted the divinity to human flesh and willed to be born of a young woman and her betrothed into a world of pain and struggle, suffering and dying. A child of the divine trust, Jesus entrusted himself to 12 friends, many of whom were disappointed and confused by him. For this trust he was denied, betrayed and deserted. Before dying, he entrusted himself to his followers in Word, in Bread and in Spirit so that he might remain with us as guide, transforming all our fears into trust and faith.

If God can so trust human beings with the divine presence and purpose, can we do any less than entrust to God all that we are, all that we fear, all for which we hope? Christmas, warns Burghardt, does not automatically create trust or cast out fear. But when you go to worship, “carol like crazy, kneel at the manger, look at the divine become vulnerable. Will fear evaporate? No!” But the antidote to fear lives. God-is-with-us!

Isa 7:10-14As Edward M. Hays has observed, there are many times in life when overwhelming fear

or anxiety makes people feel as though they are sinking into quicksand (Prayer Notes to a Friend, Forest of Peace Pub., Leavenworth, Kan.: 2002). At those times, we need to be assured quickly of the sure presence of God-with-us. That assurance, suggests Hays, can be cultivated by a new way to pray. Begin by placing your first and second fingers on the jugular vein in your throat. Feel the vigorous throbbing of life. Praying in this manner, with your fingers on your jugular, can be a very sensual affirmation that God is not absent or far away but is pulsating within you. What better way to halt the onslaught of fear and hopelessness and become centered yet again in God?

Isaiah didn’t teach Ahaz the “Jugular Prayer,” but the prophet did offer the weak and vacillating king a sign. Granted, Ahaz was in a difficult political predicament. Israel, the northern sister kingdom of Judah, had entered into an alliance with Syria in an attempt to fend off the advances of Assyria. Israel and Syria tried to coerce Ahaz to join their coalition, but he was undecided about whether to join them or to allow himself to become a protected vassal of Assyria. Isaiah warned against any coalition other than the covenant with God; the prophet begged Ahaz to see that Syria and Israel were doomed to destruction and called for renewed faith in God. By way of affirmation, he held out hope in the form of a sign. Where Ahaz had failed to be God’s regent, shepherding his people wisely, Isaiah promised that perhaps Ahaz’s soon-to-be-born son might succeed. Verse 14 of this pericope stipulates that a “young woman” will conceive; this designation does not attend to the issue of her virginity, which became important only in light of subsequent interpretation of this text in regard to Mary, mother of Jesus. This latter interpretation, of course, can be attributed to that quality of scripture called sensus plenior, or its “fuller sense.”

Suffice it to say that neither Isaiah nor Ahaz had a future “young woman” of Nazareth in mind but, rather, both had placed their hopes for Judah in its next king, Hezekiah. When these hopes were not fulfilled as expected, the sign of Isaiah continued to live and enunciate its promise that one who would eventually be born of David’s lineage would bring about the restoration of Judah.

Christians recognize Jesus as the promised Emmanuel, God-with-us, and that belief is celebrated in today’s Gospel wherein Mary is identified as the “young woman” (almah in

Hebrew; parthenos or “virgin” in Greek). Born of Mary and of David’s lineage, Jesus is the one in whom God is with us … as near as the blood pulsating with life in our jugular vein.

Rom 1:1-7Roman historian Tacitus, writing circa 116, described the capital city of the empire as the

place “where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular” (Annals, XV, 44). Like any large city, Rome had its seamier side, but Rome was also quickly becoming the western center of Christianity. Because of this, Paul was eager to go there and to brave whatever struggles he might encounter in order to establish in Rome a base of operations from which to extend the message of the Gospel westward to the ends of the earth. Paul understood, as Paul Achtemier has pointed out, that a letter to Rome was a letter to the political, military and economic capital of the then known world, and the Christian message in such a letter had to speak truth to power, justice to injustice, honesty to deception and moral uprightness to sexual aberrations (Romans¸ John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1985). Paul could no more overlook these problems than could a Christian author in our day who is trying, as was Paul, to hold out Gospel values as the norm for Christian behavior instead of the values of empire.

At the time Paul wrote to the believers in Rome (circa 55-58), many of whom he names in Chapter 16, Rome had a population of approximately 800,000 to 900,000, among whom were some 40,000 to 50,000 Judeans. Rather than write in Latin, Paul chose to address his message to them in Greek. Philip F. Esler calls this an insufficiently appreciated fact that attests to Paul’s concern for the Greek-speaking immigrants or resident aliens of the city who held a lesser social status to Roman-born citizens (Conflict and Identity in Romans, Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2003). These were the gentiles or foreigners for whose benefit Paul believed he had been set apart; it was to these that he would spend himself and all his energies so that the good news of God’s universal love and salvation would be made known.

Today’s second reading, which consists of one long sentence, constitutes the greeting of Paul’s letter to the Roman churches. Contrary to his usual custom, Paul named no con-senders because such a reference would imply their shared responsibility for the letter. Paul names only himself, prompting readers to appreciate that what will follow is Paul’s and Paul’s alone — a summation of his own understanding of the Gospel, its message, its purpose, its consequences.

First, Paul identified himself as both slave and apostle, one who belonged body and spirit to Jesus Christ and one who was set apart for the Gospel so as to be sent (apostellein, “one sent”) to the gentiles. Having identified himself, Paul also identified Jesus, Son of David, Son of God, who died and rose to call everyone to faith, obedience and holiness. What Paul said to Roman believers in the mid-first Christian century, he also says to us. As gentiles, we continue to be the special recipients of Paul’s ministry. We are called to allow his words to move us away from fear and forward in faith, to measure ourselves by no other norm save that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Matt 1:18-24Every parent is proud to relate the details of a child’s birth. Information about such an

event becomes precious and memorable as parents share the weight, the length and the exact moment that their child became part of their family. Birth announcements sent to family and friends often include a picture of the little wrinkled one who has brought so much joy.

When the Matthean evangelist wished to share the news of Jesus’ birth announcement, he chose features other than weight and length on which to focus, and he began not with Jesus’ birth, but with his conception. First, Matthew tells his readers who Jesus is. As Raymond E. Brown has pointed out, for Matthew, it was all about fulfillment (The Birth of the Messiah, Image Books, Garden City, N.Y.: 1977). Jesus, a descendant of the royal Davidic line, was begotten in the womb of Mary through God’s Holy Spirit. This statement is a most literal fulfillment of the promise made by God to David through Nathan: “I shall raise up your son after you … I shall be his father and he will be my son” (2 Sam 7:8-17). This promise, along with the formula citation from Isaiah 7:14, stressed the close connection between the House of David and the fulfillment of God’s promises to David. In Jesus, Son of David, God becomes present in the world because Jesus is the fulfillment and guarantor of the Isaian sign (first reading). In Jesus, God-is-with-us and the Emmanuel prophecy is come to life.

Besides enlightening his readers as to the “who” of Jesus, the Matthean evangelist also affirmed the “how” of Jesus’ identity. Jesus was conceived in Mary through the Holy Spirit, and it was through the agency of Joseph that the “how” of Jesus’ Davidic sonship was established. As Brown (op. cit.) has further noted, Matthew took great pains to stress that this descent was not due to the normal sexual relations between husband and wife. For Matthew, this is without a shadow of a doubt God’s will, since the two steps for legal paternity are dictated by the angel messenger: (1) Joseph did not divorce Mary but took public responsibility for her and the child to be born; (2) Joseph also assumed the responsibility of naming the child, thereby acknowledging him as his own. According to the Mishna Baba Bathra 8:6, “If a man says ‘This is my son,’ he is to be believed.” Joseph, by exercising a father’s prerogative to name Jesus, thereby became his legal father. Son of Joseph, Jesus is heir to the throne of David; Son of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

In Hebrew, explains Douglas R.A. Hare, immanu means “with us” and El is a shortened form of Elohim, the word for God (Matthew, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993). However, says Hare, we must be careful not to read this through Nicene spectacles. As referenced by Matthew, the name Emmanuel, God-with-us, focuses not on Jesus’ essence but on his function. Jesus has come to birth as Son of David and Son of God to make God present to believers in a unique manner. If this is Jesus’ special function, should not those who believe in him also share in that responsibility to reveal God’s presence with humankind?

Dec 23, 2007 Sample HomilyFourth Sunday of AdventGod Was One of Usby Fr. James Smith

Matthew writes: “This is how the birth of Jesus came about.” Then he goes into some of its biological aspects. But since we already know that, let’s look at some theological aspects, at the physical fallout from when the Son of God became the son of Mary.

It’s important to understand that God did not simply put on a suit of human nature that he could take off when it got torn. No, God didn’t assume human nature; God became human nature. But more than that, God did not take some general human material and mold it into the perfect human person.

Instead of becoming a human in general, God became a certain person in particular. And that decision greatly restricted his human experience the same way it would for any of us. Because God became a man, he could not be a woman. Because God became a Jew, he could not be a Roman. Because God was a day

laborer he could not be an executive. Because God was poor he could not be rich.

In all these ways and thousands of others, God restricted his unlimited possibilities to a few basic experiences. And we saw where it got him. He enjoyed a few friends and many enemies; his audience could be no larger than the people within earshot; his teaching was limited by his own native intelligence and the teachability of illiterate peasants and fishermen; his chances of success were curtailed by a foreign military force; the possibility of reforming his religion was thwarted by an entrenched religious establishment.

All this is so familiar that we tend to overlook its implications. Maybe to appreciate the actual life of Jesus we need to imagine what it might have been. How would Jesus have related to poor people if he had been born rich? How would he have related to God if he had been a professional priest? And what if he had been born she?

But to begin his story at birth is to begin too late. God began his heavenly descent to human form nine months before his actual birth. And what unseen, momentous things might have happened to him in the secret of the womb? What if Mary had had a miscarriage? And here is a logical question in these cruel days: What if he had been aborted? Or what if his ears or eyes failed to function, or his brain did not develop correctly? And blind preacher couldn’t have seen or talked about birds and lilies. And instead of telling scintillating parables, a dull-witted teacher would have spouted knock-knock jokes.

If all of this seems far-fetched, I submit that it’s nearer-fetched than God becoming a human. The question is not whether God took a great risk, but whether it was even a greater risk than we imagine. We know how God in the flesh turned out: poor, failed, betrayed, misunderstood, executed. Was God willing to risk even worse? Did God luck out in Jesus being who he was? Could God stand to be you or me?

The mere fact that God freely chose to become any human being, that God lived our lowly, earthy experience, shows how much God wishes us to live the divine life. And the fact that the glory of God was overshadowed by the nature of a particular person and curtailed by the culture of a specific time encourages us to imagine what God would have been like, what God in fact is now like, as we see God’s image reflected in every human.

Dec. 25, 2007 Sample HomilyChristmas DayJesus Comes Home to CreationBy Fr. James Smith

“He came into the world that was made through him.” The world was not a strange place for Jesus; he was not a tourist visiting a foreign country. Eons before his arrival from his heavenly home, this world had been made precisely for this moment. In fact, the world was made in his own image. Jesus did not have to squeeze himself into a world where he did not fit; he easily slid into the space reserved for him.

That is why Jesus felt so comfortable in our world. Nothing surprised him, nothing offended him, nothing opposed him. Of course, as a man, Jesus was experiencing everything differently than as God. Now, he touched the soft lamb’s wool, smelled the fragrant lily, tasted the sweet grape, felt the sand on his feet, was buoyed up by waves. All these physical experiences were new and delightful to him.

But they were simply additions to what he had already experienced. Before he ever touched a lamb, he knew the lamb’s essence; before he tasted and smelled any earthly thing he had already known its essential being. That is why he could calm a sea and change water to wine. He knew what water was, he knew what it could be. So, he did not force water into unnatural behavior when he walked on it or transformed it into wine — he simply brought out its inherent potential.

The Creator was infinitely comfortable within his creation. He knew how lilies grew and sheep bred and wine fermented and leaven raised; he knew how towers fell and barns were built and armies fought. Jesus was a natural man, born to live on this earth as a native.

“He came to his own.” Since Jesus was the prototype human, he knew all about us. He knew that brothers quarreled and stewards cheated and people committed adultery and the rich were often greedy and the poor would always be poor and people betrayed trust and failed in love. Jesus accepted the human condition: He expected everyone to be a sinner — because he understood that only God could be good.

And because he knew the innards of human beings, he could help them from the inside out. He could urge the bone to straighten, the scab to heal, the eyes to admit light, the ears to strain for sound, the spirit to be enlivened. His cures were not invasive surgeries but holistic healings.

Jesus also knew what was in people’s hearts, and he empathized with them. He felt the widow’s anguish at her son’s early death, he was impressed with the centurion’s faith, he appreciated his friends’ love, he knew that everyone needed to be cared for, loved just for who they were. He knew this because he was like us in all things except sin.

Jesus deeply respected the native wisdom of people. He knew that they knew more than they were able to articulate.

Thus: “The ups and downs of life have taught you how mourning is finally resolved in dancing, and that sorrow is magically transformed into joy. I don’t have to tell you that pride precedes a fall and that greed breeds greater greed and that outside deeds come from inside desires. You have failed enough to know that you cannot save yourself. And since you and I have been poor together, you believe me when I say that whenever you help anyone you help me.”

Mythical gods briefly visit their outer province among alien people. Our God came to his own creation to live forever with his own kind.

HOLY FAMILY (A)December 30, 2007Family: Found in Faith, Bonded in JusticePatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Sir 3:2-7, 12-14Col 3:12-21Matt 2:13-15, 19-23

British scripture scholar William Barclay (1907-1978) was fond of quoting his countryman, prolific author Edward Vernal Lucas (1868-1938), who wrote more than 100 books and 30 collections of essays. Barclay thought the following parable by Lucas was particularly fitting for today’s celebration of family:

A mother lost her soldier son, and the news of his dying came to her in dispatches from the war. He had died while fighting nobly at the head of his regiment. His mother was disconsolate. “If only I could see him again,” she prayed, “if only for five minutes — just to see him.” An angel heard her prayer. “For five minutes,” said the angel, “you will see him.”

“Quick, quick,” said the mother, her tears turned to momentary joy. “Yes,” said the angel, “but think a little. He was a grown man and there are 30 years from which to choose. How would you like to see him?” For a moment, the mother paused and wondered. The angel continued, “Would you see him at his post, brave in the face of danger? Would you see him again as on that day at school when he stepped forward to receive the award for highest honors in his class?” At that the mother’s face lit up. The angel continued, “Would you see him as the baby to whom you had just given birth?”

After a while, the mother began, slowly, “No, I would see him for five minutes as he was one day when he ran in from the garden to ask my forgiveness for having done something wrong. He was so small and so unhappy and the tears were making streaks down his face through the garden dust. He flew into my arms with such force that he hurt me.” The one thing that the mother wished, above all, to recapture was the moment when her son needed her. There is nothing more moving in life than to hear another say, “I need you; I cannot do without you.” (Retold in Anthony Castle’s A Treasure of Quips, Quotes and Anecdotes, Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, Conn.: 1998).

Lucas’ parable points to the essence of what we celebrate on two levels today: the gift of the human family as the locus of shared need, shared sorrows, shared joys and shared hopes; and the gift of the Holy Family, where all those needs and hopes, sorrows and joys have been addressed with a love beyond all telling.

Of all the ways that God may have chosen to communicate the gift of salvation, God chose to do it through the bonds of family. There is no little significance in that fact. God as family, often called Trinity, has chosen to relate to human beings in the manner of a parent (God the Father), a sibling (Jesus) and of a driving life force (Spirit). That divine family spawned the human family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. This family has, in turn, inspired human families through the centuries. In their care for one another despite difficulties, misunderstandings and struggle, the Holy Family remains the measure for nuclear families everywhere. These families, in turn, have the potential for becoming a worldwide family of persons bonded not by genes or vows but by faith.

Today in the liturgy, Jesus ben Sira; the author of Colossians; and the Matthean evangelist all hold out the ideal of family for our consideration. Alongside that ideal, we are to be aware, as Gail Ramshaw has pointed out, of the problems of using the image of family in the liturgy (Treasures, Old and New, Images in the Lectionary, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis: 2002). Many people spend years trying to overcome the psychological burdens of a destructive family system. Many argue that the imagery of God as Father and Christ as Son reflects only the patriarchal society from which it arose and is best abandoned.

Yet life remains in the image, insists Ramshaw, and some of its other possibilities are seldom explored. To that end, it may be helpful to realize that the New Testament offers other examples of family that are more in keeping with brotherhood or sisterhood. Take, for example, the family of Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus, or even the growing group of followers of Jesus who recognized themselves as sisters and brothers of one another because of their union in him. These families were bound by faith, shared service and economic sharing. Thus the family

imagery carries with it a dimension of justice based on the responsibility that derives from shared faith.

By virtue of our birth into the faith family of Jesus Christ, we will find ourselves connected and committed to others. These connections and commitments are not a matter of choice. We are not allowed to choose only a few. Rather, to return to Lucas’ parable, we are to see the small, tear-streaked faces of the vulnerable as brothers and sisters and realize that because of our faith, these are family.

Sir 3:2-7, 12-14Happy families, said author Phyllis McGinley in The Province of the Heart, own a

surface similarity of good cheer (Dell, New York: 1959). Above all else, they like each other, which can be quite a different thing from loving. For another almost always have one entirely personal treasure: a sort of purse full of homemade humor that they have accumulated against rainy days and difficult times. Their humor is not necessarily witty. Their jokes may not be appreciated by outsiders and their laughter can arise from the most trivial sources. But the joys and the laughter and the happiness belong entirely to the family.

While they may have had their own personal treasures of humor to ease the struggles of daily living, families in the ancient world were also bound to one another by a strict code of honor. Even if children should harbor no natural love for their parents, they were duty-bound to honor them. This societal ethic was affirmed in the Decalogue, where the mandate to “honor your father and your mother” followed immediately after the commandments pertaining to God and right before those that conceived other human relationships (Exod 20:2). The term “honor,” as Brevard S. Childs has pointed out, carries with it a range of connotations far broader than mere obedience (The Book of Exodus, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia: 1974). To honor was “to prize highly,” “to show respect,” “to glorify and exalt,” “to care for.”

Others before Jesus ben Sira had alluded to the reward or blessing that would come to those who honored their parents. In the Deuteronomic recension of this commandment, for example, the call to honor parents was followed by the stipulation: “that you might have a long life and prosperity in the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (Deut. 27:16). By the time the author of today’s first reading offered his wise counsel on the subject, the “ante” had increased, and honoring parents was described as atonement or a hedge against the debt of one’s sins. Honoring parents, according to Jesus ben Sira, would also guarantee people that their prayers would be heard and that they would have the gladness of their own children.

In the final verses of this text, ben Sira acknowledged circle of life and reminded grown children to accept the responsibility of aging parents. “Even if his mind fails,” insisted Israel’s ancient sage. At times, such caregiving roles may be difficult to assume. For that reason, each of us might find some encouragement that ben Sira’s message will grace us with the strength, patience and courage to continue to bless one another in love.

Col 3:12-21Fans of country music will be familiar with Mel Tillis and his daughter Pam, both of

whom made a career with their singing. Some may not know that Mel stuttered severely when he spoke and struggled valiantly to speak only a few words. However, when Tillis stood before a packed audience and opened his mouth to sing one of his many tunes, he did not have even the hint of a stutter. Without any hesitation, he could perform song after song; it seemed as if the music or its message had taken him to another place within himself where he could be his best

self in all confidence and freedom. Was it the music? Was it the message? Perhaps it was both, and perhaps this is the reason why the early church realized that some of its most transformative moments might be traced to the power of a hymn or a song. To that end, the nascent Christian community couched some of its most important teachings in lyric form.

Today’s first reading represents a lyrical instruction in a liturgical framework, the subject of which is the mutual care and compassion that members of a community or a family are to extend to one another in Christ’s name. Ralph P. Martin suggests that it was by such “poetic creations, inspired by the Spirit, that the believers were consolidated and given the strength to defend their faith” — to cease “stuttering,” as it were, so as to enunciate their faith clearly with both their lips and their lives (Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon, John Knox Press, Atlanta: 1991).

The content of this lyric teaching is similar to many other such lessons in the New Testament (Eph 5:22-6:9; 1 Tim 2:8-15; 6:1-2; Titus 2:1-10; 2 Peter 2:13-3:7). Drawn from comparable practical advice expressed in Hellenistic philosophy, the chief concern of these teachings was to offer rules to live by. However, whereas the Hellenistic intent was to assure that individuals remain true to their own station in life so as to maintain harmony in society, Christians offered a new motivation. Rather than follow certain set rules for harmony’s sake, Christians were to submit to one another in order to show their submission to the Lordship and leadership of Jesus Christ. This submission would be learned when the believers opened themselves and offered the Word of God a home (v. 15). Eager to hear the word, believers are also called to sing the word with gratitude, thereby teaching and administering to one another. There, says Martin (op.cit.), worship takes on its true character (and wields its considerable power) when it is viewed as the place where the agenda is set for what Christians are to do and who they are to be in the world.

Matt 2:13-15, 19-23Many expectant parents admit to having dreams about their new child during the months

preceding the child’s birth. Some dreams center on the child’s future career: Will he be a singer? Will she be an astronaut? Others focus on some special contribution their child may offer the world — a cure for AIDS, cancer or the common cold; a solution for global warming. After the child is born, these dreams are often relegated to distant memory as the reality of nurturing, guiding and protecting this actual new life sets in. In the ancient world, however, dreams were not so easily forgotten, as is reflected in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Indeed, dreams were regarded as nocturnal vehicles for special communication.

In today’s Gospel, that communication consisted in a revelation from God intended to guide Joseph and Mary in caring for Jesus. These dreams, as related by the Matthean evangelist, were also rooted in formula citations in order to illustrate that Jesus was truly the fulfillment of messianic expectations as these were expressed by the prophets of Israel.

First among the three formula citations that support this Gospel is a reference from Hosea (Hos 11:1 = Matt 2:15). “Out of Egypt I called my Son” initially referred to the exodus of Israel from Egypt as engineered by God and enacted through Moses, Aaron et al. Matthew, as Douglas R. Hare has noted, would of course have acknowledged this meaning (Matthew, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993). But he was also insisting that this text looked backward and forward. Just as the coming of Jesus would effect a new genesis for humankind, so also it would bring about a new exodus. As was Israel in the past, so now would Jesus be God’s Son,

called through Joseph’s dream out of Egypt to the Promised Land, where he would accomplish the ultimate deliverance from slavery to sin for all of humankind.

Omitted from this Gospel is a second Old Testament reference (Jeremiah 31:15). Matthew 2:17, which recalls Rachel weeping for her children at Ramah, points to the Matthean reference to the suffering of the innocents under Herod at the time of Jesus’ birth — as well as pointing, perhaps, to the suffering of Jesus, innocent par excellence. Through his blameless sacrifice, sinful humankind has been spared the consequences of their sins and death.

After Herod’s death and the return of Jesus and his family to Israel (per the advice of an angel in Joseph’s dream), a third formula citation establishes hometown roots. Although the specific words “He shall be called a Nazarean” (v. 23) can be found as such nowhere in the Old Testament, scholars suggest that Matthew was making creative use of a rather complex play on words. Nazoraios, which means “an inhabitant of Nazareth,” may also refer to Nazir (“one who is consecrated to God”; Numbers 6) and Netzer (“branch”; Isa 11:1). Calling Jesus a Nazarean cast him in light of both of these references. He was, indeed, consecrated to God. He was the branch that would come forth from the stump of Jesse (David’s line) in order to bring peace, justice, forgiveness and redemption to all of this world’s people, exiled from God through sin. What Joseph dreamed, we have the privilege to live.

Dec 30, 2007 Sample HomilyFeast of the Holy FamilyA Crisis of IntimacyBy Fr. James Smith

A woman, from the moment of her baby’s conception, is already in touch with her child without a word being spoken. Every day of the pregnancy, that intimacy grows, and though a mother does not see her child, she feels and cherishes her own flesh and blood.

So that when the child is born, the mother is already nine months ahead of the father, who has to learn to know this little stranger who is already his wife’s intimate friend. That is why it’s not that unusual for discouragement to get the upper hand and for the father to throw in the towel, to leave all the responsibility for intimacy up to the mother.

Today’s Gospel speaks to fathers. Like millions of other fathers, Joseph is facing a crisis of intimacy. His betrothed is pregnant and he doesn’t know how. He naturally feels cheated, betrayed and left out of the situation. Mary’s intimacy with this new life in her excludes Joseph, so he tries to throw in the towel: He considers divorce — but quietly, instead of publicly disgracing her.

But before he can execute his plan, a strange creature appears to him in a dream and tells him to accept Mary as his wife. A pregnant bride would be easy enough for a sexless angel to accept, but as Dostoevsky warned, love in the real world is harder than a dream.

Especially in those cramped days. After all, Joseph was not coming from Chicago to wed Mary in Columbus and then move to Houston where they would set up a totally separate family unit. Far away from prying relatives, they could fashion any family life they chose.

But this was little Nazareth, a village of about 300 people, all of them related to some degree. Families intermarried and shared living space as well as resources. After marriage, Joseph would have to live with his male relatives who would tease him about his less-than-virgin bride. Mary would have to live with all the women who would roll their eyes at this poor seduced girl.

There was no private family unit. Until he was 12, Jesus would live with the women and learn womanly things. Then he would move into the male part of the compound and learn manly things. He would work with his father every day and learn the carpentry trade. But more than that, he would learn how to be a man.

We would not consider this a very desirable family life. But it met the needs of those days. Marriage was not primarily for love but to raise a family. Children were not unique persons but family members. There surely must have been love, but it was directed toward forming children to be useful clan members and faithful Jews. Whatever sacrifices were necessary to fulfill this purpose were considered worthwhile and personally fulfilling.

Times and families have changed drastically, but the purpose of the Catholic family is the same: to raise good citizens and form faithful Catholics. But mothers no longer have the help of women relatives, so they must hand their children over to strangers for care. Fathers must leave home to work, and taking their child to work once a year is nothing at all like working side by side day after day, year after year. Modern family life leaves precious little family time together, and making it “quality time” does not make it last any longer.

Father Joseph, pray for our families struggling against great odds.